The excitement is really starting to build as we count down the days to our first Model S deliveries. We are ahead of schedule and can’t wait to put our first Reservation Holders behind the wheel! We’ve been looking forward to this day for over three years, and the buzz around the office and the factory is escalating every day.
FIRST DELIVERIES SCHEDULED!
The Tesla Factory will begin customer deliveries of the 2012 Model S sedan on June 22nd!!! We have a great day planned for our employees to celebrate this incredible event and will be webcasting the actual delivery ceremony on teslamotors.com. My heart is racing just thinking about it!
I find myself spending more and more time at the factory lately as we prepare to deliver our first cars. As I walk alongside the assembly line, past the paint booths and through the Plastics Center, I think there are lots of interesting activities going on that you might like to see. I am amazed at how fast our robots can position major sections of the car and how quickly our massive presses can transform huge rolls of aluminum into doors, hoods and battery enclosures.
Tesla Motors Model S sedan for 2012
Several weeks ago I challenged the teams at Deer Creek and Fremont to find a way to share some of these cool activities with our friends and family around the world. I’m happy to say they have met the challenge. Starting with this post, we officially begin a new series called “Inside Tesla.” Every Tuesday from now through the start of Model S deliveries we are going to post a blog with a new video and a collection of images highlighting a segment of the Model S manufacturing process. Be on the lookout, we might also have a few surprises to share along the way :).
EVENTS AND STORE OPENINGS
We will continue to hold Model S events in other areas during the countdown to June 22nd. A few weeks ago we held our “Signature - Four Color” event at Tesla Fashion Island in Newport Beach, California. It was the second time we had four Model S Beta cars, in all four Signature colors, on display at a Tesla Retail Store. It was great! Many thanks to the 9,000 visitors who stopped by to see us throughout the weekend. Given the energy and excitement surrounding these types of events, we thought it would be fun to create an Event Gallery on teslamotors.com to share some of our favorite photos and videos. Check it out and let us know what you think!
Tesla Motors showroom in Fashion Island Mall in Newport Beach, CA. Site of the Tesla Fashion Island Signature Weekend, May 4, 2012 (Click Image To Enlarge)
One of the most frequent comments I hear at events is
“You always do everything on the West Coast. How about doing something on the East Coast?”
So, East Coast here we come! This weekend we open our first “new design” store on the East Coast at The Westchester in White Plains, New York. We are bringing four Betas to the opening. This is the first time the “Signature - Four Color” event will be on the East Coast and the first time we’ve assembled four Model S Beta cars at a store opening. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you at the opening.
We haven’t forgotten about our fans north of the border. Last week we launched a five-city Model S Beta tour through Canada. After first stopping in Ottawa and Laval, Quebec, the Signature Red Model S Beta will take up temporary residence in Etobicoke, Ontario this week before moving on to Calgary and Vancouver in June. We hope to see you along the way!
MODEL S UPDATES
I’d like to share a few Model S updates that again underscore how personalized YOUR Model S can be. Model S can be adjusted exactly the way YOU like it.
Regen(erative) braking
One of the engineering advantages that make an EV better than any gas-powered car is regenerative braking. When you take your foot off the Model S accelerator, energy is fed back into the battery, which causes the car to slow down (a similar feel to downshifting with a manual transmission). One of our Firmware engineers wrote a great blog about this technology shortly after the release of our Tesla Roadster. Over the past few years, we have learned that not everyone likes the same amount of Regen. Some owners like a little more resistance, some like a little less. Having less Regen means you will likely get less range, but some people still prefer the feel of their car with less Regen. We listened to your requests and I’m pleased to announce that Model S Regen will be adjustable. You can adjust Regen to suit your driving style.
Adjustable Steering
One of the many benefits of driving a Tesla is that almost everything can be adjusted. Even the steering on Model S is adjustable, which allows you to change the resistance required to turn the steering wheel. You’ll be able to choose between Comfort, Standard, and Sport steering.
Personalize your Suspension
As you can see, we’re developing a theme here – personalization. At Tesla, we are thinking differently about the way you connect with your car. Every Tesla customer is different, so we thought everyone should have the option to set his or her preference for suspension and ride height. With Active Air Suspension, a car set a little lower to the ground will reduce aero drag. You may choose to raise the suspension a few inches when faced with pesky speed bumps or very high when loading up the Frunk with groceries and supplies for a summer BBQ.
Range Testing
I’m thrilled to report that range & efficiency testing has been completed on our 85 kWh Model S. We’ve exceeded expectations. Elon and JB just posted a blog explaining recent changes to EPA testing procedures and how they relate to Model S. It’s definitely worth checking out. I think it answers a lot of questions about EV range and efficiency.
These are very exciting times at Tesla and we’re looking forward to sharing them with each and every one of you as we countdown to June 22nd. We can’t wait to make every new owner smile as they jump behind the wheel of the most personalized and fun driving experience they’ve ever had. Be sure to check out “Inside Tesla” every Tuesday and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitterfor the latest updates and news. See you this weekend, East Coast.
Let the countdown begin!!!
COMMENTARY: Elon Musk is really on a roll. He just succesfully launched SpaceX's Faclon 9 rocket and docked the Dragon spacecraft with the Internatinoal Space Station. Now he is getting ready to deliver the first Tesla Motors Model S sedans on June 22, 2012. Halleluhaj!
The Model S sedan is an absolutely the most beautiful, luxurous and technologically advanced all-electric sedan available today. Elon Musk has done it again.
Courtesy of a blog post dated May 22, 2012 by George Blankenship, Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Ownership Experience appearing in the Tesla Enthusiasts Blog
Click Image to view the first-ever views of the complete remains of the ship in full profile appearing in the April 2012 edition of National Geographic Magazine
At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the “unsinkable” RMS Titanic disappeared beneath the waves, taking with her 1,500 souls. One hundred years later, new technologies have revealed the most complete—and most intimate—images of the famous wreck.
The wreck sleeps in darkness, a puzzlement of corroded steel strewn across a thousand acres of the North Atlantic seabed. Fungi feed on it. Weird colorless life-forms, unfazed by the crushing pressure, prowl its jagged ramparts. From time to time, beginning with the discovery of the wreck in 1985 by Explorer-in-Residence Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel, a robot or a manned submersible has swept over Titanic’s gloomy facets, pinged a sonar beam in its direction, taken some images—and left.
In recent years explorers like James Cameron and Paul-Henry Nargeolet have brought back increasingly vivid pictures of the wreck. Yet we’ve mainly glimpsed the site as though through a keyhole, our view limited by the dreck suspended in the water and the ambit of a submersible’s lights. Never have we been able to grasp the relationships between all the disparate pieces of wreckage. Never have we taken the full measure of what’s down there.
Until now. In a tricked-out trailer on a back lot of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), William Lange stands over a blown-up sonar survey map of theTitanic site—a meticulously stitched-together mosaic that has taken months to construct. At first look the ghostly image resembles the surface of the moon, with innumerable striations in the seabed, as well as craters caused by boulders dropped over millennia from melting icebergs.
Sonar images of the forward (bow) and rear sections (stern) of the RMS Titanic and the entire debris field of the Titanic lying at the bottom of the Northern Atlantic Ocean (Click Images To Enlarge)
On closer inspection, though, the site appears to be littered with man-made detritus—a Jackson Pollock-like scattering of lines and spheres, scraps and shards. Lange turns to his computer and points to a portion of the map that has been brought to life by layering optical data onto the sonar image. He zooms in, and in, and in again. Now we can see the Titanic’s bow in gritty clarity, a gaping black hole where its forward funnel once sprouted, an ejected hatch cover resting in the mud a few hundred feet to the north. The image is rich in detail: In one frame we can even make out a white crab clawing at a railing.
Here, in the sweep of a computer mouse, is the entire wreck of the Titanic—every bollard, every davit, every boiler. What was once a largely indecipherable mess has become a high-resolution crash scene photograph, with clear patterns emerging from the murk. Lange says.
“Now we know where everything is. After a hundred years, the lights are finally on.”
Bill Lange is the head of WHOI’s Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory, a kind of high-tech photographic studio of the deep. A few blocks from Woods Hole’s picturesque harbor, on the southwestern elbow of Cape Cod, the laboratory is an acoustic-tiled cave crammed with high-definition television monitors and banks of humming computers. Lange was part of the original Ballard expedition that found the wreck, and he’s been training ever more sophisticated cameras on the site ever since.
Sonar images of the forward half of the RMS Titanic at the bottom of the Northern Atlantic Ocean and image of the ship showing the application forward section (Click Image To Enlarge)
This imagery, the result of an ambitious multi-million-dollar expedition undertaken in August-September 2010, was captured by three state-of-the-art robotic vehicles that flew at various altitudes above the abyssal plain in long, preprogrammed swaths. Bristling with side-scan and multibeam sonar as well as high-definition optical cameras snapping hundreds of images a second, the robots systematically “mowed the lawn,” as the technique is called, working back and forth across a three-by-five-mile target area of the ocean floor. These ribbons of data have now been digitally stitched together to assemble a massive high-definition picture in which everything has been precisely gridded and geo-referenced.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) archaeologist James Delgado, the expedition’s chief scientist said.
“This is a game-changer. In the past, trying to understand Titanic was like trying to understand Manhattan at midnight in a rainstorm—with a flashlight. Now we have a site that can be understood and measured, with definite things to tell us. In years to come this historic map may give voice to those people who were silenced, seemingly forever, when the cold water closed over them.”
What is it about the wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic? Why, a century later, do people still lavish so much brainpower and technological ingenuity upon this graveyard of metal more than two miles beneath the ocean surface? Why, like Pearl Harbor, ground zero, and only a few other hallowed disaster zones, does it exert such a magnetic pull on our imagination?
These new photos, shot using state-of-the-are technology by independent research group Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, provide viewers with a greater understanding of what happened on that fateful April 15, 1912.
RMS Titanic bucked as it blowed nose-first into the seabed, leaving the forward hull buried deep in mud--obscuring, possibly forever, the damage inflicted by the iceberg (Click Image To Enlarge)
RMS Titanic's battered stern is captured overhead here. Making sense of this tangle of metal presents endless challenges to experts. (Click Image To Enlarge)
RMS Titanic's battered stern, captured here in profile, bears witness to the extreme trauma inflicted upon it as it corkscrewed to the bottom (Click Image To Enlarge)
Ethereal views of Titanic's bow (modeled) offer a comprehensiveness of detail never seen before (Click Image To Enlarge)
Researchers Kirk Wolfinger, top left, Rushmore DeNooyer, and Tony Bacon put together the 100,000 sonar images of the RMS Titanic for a History Channel documentary (Click Image To Enlarge)
For some the sheer extravagance of Titanic’s demise lies at the heart of its attraction. This has always been a story of superlatives: A ship so strong and so grand, sinking in water so cold and so deep. For others the Titanic’s fascination begins and ends with the people on board. It took two hours and 40 minutes for the Titanic to sink, just long enough for 2,208 tragic-epic performances to unfold, with the ship’s lights blazing. One coward is said to have made for the lifeboats dressed in women’s clothing, but most people were honorable, many heroic. The captain stayed at the bridge, the band played on, the Marconi wireless radio operators continued sending their distress signals until the very end. The passengers, for the most part, kept to their Edwardian stations. How they lived their final moments is the stuff of universal interest, a danse macabre that never ends.
But something else, beyond human lives, went down with the Titanic: An illusion of orderliness, a faith in technological progress, a yearning for the future that, as Europe drifted toward full-scale war, was soon replaced by fears and dreads all too familiar to our modern world. James Cameron told me.
“The Titanic disaster was the bursting of a bubble. There was such a sense of bounty in the first decade of the 20th century. Elevators! Automobiles! Airplanes! Wireless radio! Everything seemed so wondrous, on an endless upward spiral. Then it all came crashing down.”
A portion of RMS Titanic's steel hull that broke off when she sunk. Shows several portals and hundreds of rivets (Click Image To Enlarge)
The mother of all shipwrecks has many homes—literal, legal, and metaphorical—but none more surreal than the Las Vegas Strip. At the Luxor Hotel, in an upstairs entertainment court situated next to a striptease show and a production of Menopause the Musical, is a semipermanent exhibition of Titanic artifacts brought up from the ocean depths by RMS Titanic, Inc., the wreck’s legal salvager since 1994. More than 25 million people have seen this exhibit and similar RMST shows that have been staged in 20 countries around the world.
I spent a day at the Luxor in mid-October, wandering among the Titanic relics: A chef’s toque, a razor, lumps of coal, a set of perfectly preserved serving dishes, innumerable pairs of shoes, bottles of perfume, a leather gladstone bag, a champagne bottle with the cork still in it. They are mostly ordinary objects made extraordinary for the long, terrible journey that brought them to these clean Plexiglas cases.
I passed through a darkened chamber kept as cold as a meat locker, with a Freon-fed “iceberg” that visitors can go up to and touch. Piped-in sighs and groans of rending metal contributed to the sensation of being trapped in the belly of a fatally wounded beast. The exhibit’s centerpiece, however, was a gargantuan slab of Titanic’s hull, known as the “big piece,” that weighs 15 tons and was, after several mishaps, hoisted by crane from the seabed in 1998. Studded with rivets, ribbed with steel, this monstrosity of black metal reminded me of a T. rex at a natural history museum: impossibly huge, pinned and braced at great expense—an extinct species hauled back from a lost world.
The RMST exhibit is well-done, but over the years many marine archaeologists have had harsh words for the company and its executives, calling them grave robbers, treasure hunters, carnival barkers—and worse. Robert Ballard, who has long argued that the wreck and all its contents should be preserved in situ, has been particularly caustic in his criticism of RMST’s methodologies. Ballard told me.
“You don’t go to the Louvre and stick your finger on the Mona Lisa. You don’t visit Gettysburg with a shovel. These guys are driven by greed—just look at their sordid history.”
In recent years, however, RMST has come under new management and has taken a different course, shifting its focus away from pure salvage toward a long-term plan for approaching the wreck as an archaeological site—while working in concert with scientific and governmental organizations most concerned with the Titanic. In fact, the 2010 expedition that captured the first view of the entire wreck site was organized, led, and paid for by RMST. In a reversal from years past, the company now supports calls for legislation creating a protected Titanic maritime memorial. Late in 2011 RMST announced plans to auction off its entire $189 million collection of artifacts and related intellectual property in time for the disaster’s hundredth anniversary—but only if it can find a bidder willing to abide by the stringent conditions imposed by a federal court, including that the collection be kept intact.
I met RMST’s president, Chris Davino, at the company’s artifacts warehouse, tucked next to a dog grooming parlor in a nondescript block on the edge of Atlanta’s Buckhead district. Deep inside the climate-controlled brick building, a forklift trundled down the long aisles of industrial shelving stacked with meticulously labeled crates containing relics—dishes, clothing, letters, bottles, plumbing pieces, portholes—that were retrieved from the site over the past three decades. Here Davino, a dapper, Jersey shore-raised “turnaround professional” who has led RMST since 2009, explained the company’s new tack. Davino said.
“For years, the only thing that all the voices in the Titanic community could agree on was their disdain of us. So it was time to reassess everything. We had to do something beyond artifact recovery. We had to stop fighting with the experts and start collaborating with them.”
Which is exactly what’s happened. Government agencies such as NOAA that were formerly embroiled in lawsuits against RMST and its parent company, Premier Exhibitions, Inc., are now working directly with RMST on various long-range scientific projects as part of a new consortium dedicated to protecting the wreck site. Dave Conlin, chief marine archaeologist at the National Park Service, another agency that had been vehemently critical of the company says.
“It’s not easy to thread the needle between preservation and profit. RMST deserved the flak they got in years past, but they also deserve credit for taking this new leap of faith.”
Scholars praise RMST for recently hiring one of the world’s preeminent Titanic experts to analyze the 2010 images and begin to identify the many unsorted puzzle pieces on the ocean floor. Bill Sauder is a gnome-like man with thick glasses and a great shaggy beard that flexes and snags on itself when he laughs. His business card identifies him as a “director of Titanic research,” but that doesn’t begin to hint at his encyclopedic mastery of the Titanic’s class of ocean liners. (Sauder himself prefers to say that he is RMST’s “keeper of odd knowledge.”)
When I met him in Atlanta, he was parked at his computer, attempting to make head or tail of a heap of rubbish photographed in 2010 near the Titanic’s stern. Most Titanic expeditions have focused on the more photogenic bow section, which lies over a third of a mile to the north of most of the wreckage, but Sauder thinks that the area in the vicinity of the stern is where the real action will likely be concentrated in years to come—especially with the new RMST images providing a clearer guide. Sauder said.
“The bow’s very sexy, but we’ve been to it hundreds of times. All this wreckage here to the south is what I’m interested in.”
In essence Sauder was hunting for anything recognizable, any pattern amid the chaos around the stern. He told me.
“We like to picture shipwrecks as Greek temples on a hill—you know, very picturesque. But they’re not. They’re ruined industrial sites: piles of plates and rivets and stiffeners. If you’re going to interpret this stuff, you gotta love Picasso.”
Sauder zoomed in on the image at hand, and within a few minutes had solved at least a small part of the mystery near the stern: Lying atop the wreckage was the crumpled brass frame of a revolving door, probably from a first-class lounge. It is the kind of painstaking work that only someone who knows every inch of the ship could perform—a tiny part of an enormous Where’s Waldo? sleuthing project that could keep Bill Sauder busy for years.
In late October I found myself in Manhattan Beach, California, inside a hangar-size film studio where James Cameron, surrounded by dazzling props and models from his 1997 movie, Titanic, had assembled a roundtable of some of the world’s foremost nautical authorities—quite possibly the most illustrious conclave of Titanic experts ever gathered. Along with Cameron, Bill Sauder, and RMST explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet, the roundtable boasted Titanic historian Don Lynch and famed Titanic artist Ken Marschall, along with a naval engineer, a Woods Hole oceanographer, and two U.S. Navy architects.
Cameron could more than hold his own in this select company. A self-described “rivet-counting Titanic geek,” the filmmaker has led three expeditions to the site. He developed and piloted a new class of nimble, fiber-spooling robots that brought back never before seen images of the ship’s interior, including tantalizing glimpses of the Turkish bath and some of the opulent staterooms.
Cameron has white hair and a close-clipped white goatee, and when he’s wound up on Titanic matters, a certain Melvillean intensity weighs on his brow. Cameron has also filmed the wreck of the Bismarck and is now building a submarine to take him and his cameras to the Mariana Trench. But the Titanic still holds him; he keeps swearing off the subject, only to return. He told me at his Malibu compound.
“There’s this very strange mixture of biology and architecture down there—this sort of biomechanoid quality. I think it’s gorgeous and otherworldly. You really feel like this is something that’s gone to Tartarus—to the underworld.”
At Cameron’s request, the two-day roundtable would concentrate entirely on forensics: Why did the Titanic break up the way she did? Precisely where did the hull fail? At what angle did the myriad components smash into the seabed? It was to be a kind of inquest, in other words, nearly a hundred years after the fact.
Cameron said.
“What you’re looking at is a crime scene. Once you understand that, you really get sucked into the minutiae. You want to know: How’d it get like that? How’d the knife wind up over here and the gun over there?”
Perhaps inevitably, the roundtable took off in esoteric directions—with discussion of glide ratios, shearing forces, turbidity studies. Listeners lacking an engineering sensibility would have extracted one indelible impression from the seminar: Titanic’s final moments were hideously, horrifically violent. Many accounts depict the ship as “slipping beneath the ocean waves,” as though she drifted tranquilly off to sleep, but nothing could be further from the truth. Building on many years of close analysis of the wreck, and employing state-of-the-art flooding models and “finite element” simulations used in the modern shipping industry, the experts painted a gruesome portrait of Titanic’s death throes.
The ship sideswiped the iceberg at 11:40 p.m., buckling portions of the starboard hull along a 300-foot span and exposing the six forward watertight compartments to the sea. From this moment onward, sinking was a certainty. The demise may have been hastened, however, when crewmen pushed open a gangway door on the port side in an aborted attempt to load lifeboats from a lower level. Since the ship had begun listing to port, they could not reclose the massive door against gravity, and by 1:50 a.m., the bow had settled enough to allow seawater to rush in through the gangway.
By 2:18, with the last lifeboat having departed 13 minutes earlier, the bow had filled with water and the stern had risen high enough into the air to expose the propellers and create catastrophic stresses on the middle of the ship. Then the Titanic cracked in half.
Cameron stood up and demonstrated how it happened. He grabbed a banana and began to wrench it in his hands:
“Watch how it flexes and pooches in the middle before it breaks—see that?”
The banana skin at the bottom, which was supposed to represent the doubly reinforced bottom of the hull, was the last part to snap.
Once released from the stern section, the bow shot for the bottom at a fairly steep angle. Gaining velocity as it dropped, parts began to shear away: Funnels snapped. The wheelhouse crumbled. Finally, after five minutes of relentless descent, the bow nosed into the mud with such massive force that its ejecta patterns are still visible on the seafloor today.
The stern, lacking a hydrodynamic leading edge like the bow, descended even more traumatically, tumbling and corkscrewing as it fell. A large forward section, already weakened by the fracture at the surface, completely disintegrated, spitting its contents into the abyss. Compartments exploded. Decks pancaked. Hull plates ripped out. The poop deck twisted back over itself. Heavier pieces such as the boilers dropped straight down, while other pieces were flung off “like Frisbees.” For more than two miles, the stern made its tortured descent—rupturing, buckling, warping, compressing, and gradually disintegrating. By the time it hit the ocean floor, it was unrecognizable.
Sitting back down, Cameron popped a pinched piece of banana in his mouth and ate it. He said.
“We didn’t want the Titanic to have broken up like this. We wanted her to have gone down in some kind of ghostly perfection.”
Listening to this learned disquisition on the Titanic’s death, I kept wondering: What happened to the people still on board as she sank? Most of the 1,496 victims died of hypothermia at the surface, bobbing in a patch of cork life preservers. But hundreds of people may still have been alive inside, most of them immigrant families in steerage class, looking forward to a new life in America. How did they, during their last moments, experience these colossal wrenchings and shudderings of metal? What would they have heard and felt? It was, even a hundred years later, too awful to contemplate.
St. John’s, Newfoundland, is another of Titanic’s homes. On June 8, 1912, a rescue ship returned to St. John’s bearing the last recovered Titanic corpse. For months, deck chairs, pieces of wood paneling, and other relics were reported to have washed up on the Newfoundland coast.
I had hoped to pay my respects to the people who literally went down with the ship by flying to the wreck site from St. John’s with the International Ice Patrol, the agency created in the disaster’s aftermath to keep watch for icebergs in the North Atlantic sea lanes. When a nor’easter canceled all flights, I found my way instead to a tavern in the George Street district, where I was treated to a locally made vodka distilled with iceberg water. To complete the effect, the bartender plopped into my glass an angular nub of ice chipped from an iceberg, supposedly calved from the same Greenlandic glacier that birthed the berg that sank Titanic. The ice ticked and fizzed in my glass—the exhalations, I was told, of ancient atmospheres trapped inside.
I could still get a little closer, physically and figuratively, to those who rest forever with the ship. A few years before the disaster, Guglielmo Marconi built a permanent wireless station on a desolate, wind-battered spit south of St. John’s, called Cape Race. Locals claim that the first person to receive the distress signal from the sinking ship was Jim Myrick, a 14-year-old wireless apprentice at the station who went on to a career with the Marconi Company. Initially, the transmission came in as a standard emergency code, CQD. But then Cape Race received a new signal, seldom used before: SOS.
One morning at Cape Race, amid the carcasses of old Marconi machines and crystal receivers, I met David Myrick, Jim’s great-nephew, a marine radio operator and the last of a proud line of antique communicators. David said his uncle never spoke about the night the Titanic sank until he was a frail old man. By that point, Jim had lost his hearing so completely that the only way the family could converse with him was through Morse code—manipulating a smoke detector to produce high-pitched dots and dashes. David said.
“A Marconi man to the end. He thought in Morse code—hell, he dreamed in it.”
We went out by the lighthouse and looked over the cold sea, which crashed into the cliffs below. An oil tanker cruised in the distance. Farther out, on the Grand Banks, new icebergs had been reported. Farther out still, somewhere beyond the bulge of the horizon, lay the most famous shipwreck in the world. My mind raced with thoughts of signals bouncing in the ionosphere—the propagation of radio waves, the cry of ages submerged in time. And I imagined I could hear the voice of the Titanic herself: A vessel with too much pride in her name, sprinting smartly toward a new world, only to be mortally nicked by something as old and slow as ice.
COMMENTARY: Everytime I watch the movie "Titanic," I get goosebumps. It's such an incredible love story emersed with the grandeur of the RMS Titanic on her maiden voyage that would end so tragically. Let's hope we never have to experience another tragedy like the Titanic.
Director/Producer John Cameron did an incredible job filming the events of that terrible night in the original film "Titanic." Cameron is bringing back "Titanic" in all her glory in 3D this time, and the film will be shown for a limited engagement beginning in April 2012. Hope to see you there. Now the Titanic 3D Official Trailer.
For an authentic history of the RMS Titanic, check out the Titanic Stories , RMS Titanic, Inc and Titanic Historical Society websites. These sites are the best of several and include some incredible content including images and videos of the ship, her passengers, the survivors and many other interesting facts about Titanic.
Courtesy in an article of the April 2012 issue of National Geographic Magazine and an article dated March 9, 2012 appearing in the Daily Mail and an article dated March 21, 2012 appearing in the Daily Mail
A new CEO for the deeply troubled extended-range luxury electric vehicle maker.
Fisker Automotive, a VC-funded extended range electric vehicle maker, just moved co-Founder Henrik Fisker to Executive Chairman of the firm, and appointed Tom LaSorda as CEO and Vice Chairman of the Board.
Former Fisker Automotive co-founder and CEO Henrik Fisker (right) had a visit from U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden (left) at Fisker Automotive's Anaheim HQ on October 29, 2009 (Click Image To Enlarge)
LaSorda was formerly CEO, President and Vice Chairman of the Chrysler Group and also held executive positions at General Motors.
New Fisker Automotive CEO Tom LaSorda replaces Henrik Fisker (Click Image To Enlarge)
The firm has raised more than $800 million in private equity and produced only a few hundred vehicles, amidst recalls, DOE loan issues, and layoffs. Ray Lane, former Chairman of the Board, will take a "lead director role" according to a press release from the firm. Lane also shepherded Next Autoworks (the former V-Vehicle) into its current situation.
It’s bad news for Fisker on top of bad news that’s been filtering out for months. The Anaheim, Calif.-based startup has continually delayed the sale of its Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid sports car. That’s hurt lithium-ion battery maker andpartner A123 Systems, which laid off about 125 employees in November and lowered its annual revenue forecast, a move blamed largely on Fisker’s delays.
At the same time, Fisker has been renovating an old General Motors plant to build its next-generation “Project Nina” lower-cost plug-in hybrid sedans. That’s the reason it won a $529 million AVTM loan in 2010, and the project it has now halted as it seeks to renegotiate its loan.
So far, Fisker has drawn on about $193 million of the $529 million AVTM loan, which leaves $336 million yet to tap. The loan actually laid out that Fisker could spend about $169 million on Karma engineering and $359 million on its Project Nina plans.
Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher told reporters that access to the loan has been blocked since May. Neither party would talk about the renegotiation underway. But DOE spokesman Damien LaVera told Bloomberg that the agency has “strict conditions in place to protect taxpayers. The department only allows the loan to be disbursed as the company meets certain milestones and demonstrates results.”
The DOE’s greentech loan program has come under intense scrutiny since Solyndradeclared bankruptcy in October. The thin-film solar module startup landed a $535 million DOE loan in 2009, but looks to be unlikely to be able to pay much of it back. Closer to the automotive industry, lithium-ion battery maker Ener1 filed for bankruptcy protection last month, after receiving a $198 million DOE grant.
Fisker has raised about $850 million in private capital from investors including Kleiner Perkins and A123. That includes $260 million in 2011, most recently with a $150 million round launched in November.
But it’s also struggled to deliver on its $102,000 luxury plug-in Karma, with only 225 vehicles sent to dealers and another 1,200 in the pipeline, CEO Henrik Fisker said in December. At the same time, its DOE loan was made conditional on the company delivering a cheaper mass-market model built in the United States, not by Finnish contract manufacturer Valmet, as today’s Karma models are.
Fisker’s Project Nina plant is also backed by $21 million in Delaware state loans. Fisker bought the site in late 2009, started hiring workers in July and had hired about 100 people as of late 2011. Monday’s layoffs included about 26 Delaware employees and about 40 at its headquarters.
Making cars is expensive, and Fisker must prove it can control those costs as it moves from contract manufacturing collectors' items to building mass-market cars on its own. In that sense, its rival is Tesla Motors and that company's Model S sedan -- but it’s also fighting against auto giants like Nissan, GM and all the rest. Having its first U.S. factory put on hold can’t be reassuring to would-be investors in its hoped-for IPO.
COMMENTARY: In a previous blog post dated February 8, 2012, I reported that the Department of Energy had refused to allow further drawdowns on a $529 million loan, because Fisker Automotive had failed to meet the DOE's production and sales milestones. Fisker announced layofs of 26 employees from its "Nina" plant in Delaware and speed up layoffs of 40-45 engineers at its Anaheim, California headquarters.
Unless Fisker Automotive can lower its production costs and obtain additional financing, it will probably be unable to deliver the remainder of its Karma backlog, have to layoff even more employees, and may endup declaring bankruptcy and shutdown production altogether.
In my opinion, moving co-Founder Henrik Fisker to Executive Chairman of the firm, and appointing Tom LaSorda as CEO and Vice Chairman of the Board is just a cosmetic change, and not really going to help Fisker Automotive make cars. In fact, having so few workers left, amounts to a slow death if you ask me.
As far as I know, no one is going to come in and bailout Fisker Automotive through an acquisition. That $1 billion+ in total debt is like a heavy anchor weighing down the company. Their only hope is a white knight who could come in an acquire the company, but who would be crazy to do that? As far as I am concerned, Fisker Automotive is a dead duck waiting to happen.
Courtesy of an article dated February 28, 2012 appearing in GreenTechMedia
HAWTHORNE, Calif. — On Thursday, February 9, 2012, Tesla Motors unveiled a prototype of its third vehicle, the Model X, here at the company’s design studios. Elon Musk, the chief executive of the electric vehicle start-up, said the crossover-like car would enter production in late 2013.
Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors, with the Model X prototype on Thursday, February 9, 2012
Mr. Musk said of the X in an interview after a preview for media.
“This is kind of the killer app for families/ It has more utility than a minivan, and better performance, much better performance, than an S.U.V.”
With a shape evocative of recent premium crossovers like the Acura ZDX and BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo, the Model X fits within a popular niche. Its copious interior space, however, aligns it more closely with minivans and S.U.V.’s.
Acura ZDX AWD 4-Dr (Click Image To Enlarge)
BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo
Mr. Musk said.
“Because it is an electric car, and we don’t have to package a traditional internal combustion engine powertrain, we have available to us much more packaging opportunities.”
The new model was shown weeks after the announcement of two high-ranking engineers’ departures sent Tesla’s stock price falling sharply before it rebounded the following week. News of the Model X also came days after Fisker Automotive, another start-up, announced it would not meet sales benchmarks outlined by the Energy Department in the $529 million loan it extended to the company in 2009, and would lay off dozens of workers. Tesla received a loan of $465 million from the DOE that same year.
Problems with cash flow plagued Tesla as it tried to deliver its first product, the Roadster, but contracts to supply electric power trains to companies like Daimler and Toyota, as well as a lucrative I.P.O. in 2010, have given the company more solid financial footing.
The Model X evokes other premium crossovers, particularly the Acura ZDX and BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo.
A signature feature of the Model X, destined for the production model, Mr. Musk said, was the so-called falcon-wing doors for rear passengers. Like a traditional gullwing door, they open upward, but a hinge in the middle allows the leading edge of the door to remain tucked closely to the car.
Mr. Musk said.
“You can get in and out in the tightest garage or parking spot without hitting the wall or car next to you, or your head.”
The Model X has two trunks: one in the rear and another under up front, where the engine would otherwise be found. Mr. Musk said.
“Some S.U.V.’s and minivans claim to have room for seven passengers. But if you fill them with people, there is no room for their luggage. The Model X offers ample room for seven adults, and their luggage.”
Like the Model S sedan, which is expected to arrive in showrooms this summer after numerous delays, the Model X conceals its batteries in the platform of the car. Electric motors spin the front and rear wheels independently. Mr. Musk said.
“It has an innovative all-wheel-drive system that is incredibly precise and accurate in its application of power and traction, much more so than any other type of all-wheel-drive out there.”
The Model X shares about 60 percent of its content with the Model S and weighs about 10 percent more. As a result, Mr. Musk said, the X would squeeze roughly 10 percent less range from its battery packs. The X would be offered with a choice of two packs, rated at 60 and 85 kilowatt-hours. For comparison, Tesla estimates a Model S can travel 160-300 miles on a full charge, depending on battery-pack specification.
Mr. Musk said.
“Even though the X is heavier, it will still go zero to 60 miles an hour in about 4.4 seconds. And that’s not even the Performance model.”
Pricing should be close to Model S territory, he added. That model starts at $49,900 after a $7,500 federal tax credit, but the price can approach $100,000, depending on options.
He said.
“This will be our most important, and highest-volume car, when it comes out.”
A fourth model, aimed at a lower price point and wider audience, would likely be announced in 18 to 24 months he added.
COMMENTARY: I love the Model X's gullwing doors and sportiness of a sedan and convenience and roominess of an SUV. The two trunks will really come in handy for groceries and carrying luggage and other cargo. The pricing is a high, but Tesla Motors has a reputation for well-designed and engineered automobiles. They tend to attract affluent buyers, so the Model X hits the sweet spot now occupied by BMW, Mercedes and Acura. The Model X fills an attractive niche in the luxury sedan/SUV space, and its technology should make it a formidable competitor to non-electrics. The touchscreen on the Model X dashboard is like the one on the Model S electric sports sedan.
Courtesy of an ar5ticle dated February 9, 2012 appearing in the New York Times Blog
Dutch kindergarden students pedaling their bus to school (Click Image To Enlarge)
In the Netherlands, bikes abound. And now, they even take kids to school. Behold, the bicycle school bus.
The Dutch are bicycle fanatics. Almost half of daily travel in the Netherlands is by bicycle, while the country’s bike fleet comfortably outnumers its 16 million people. Devotees of the national obsession have taken the next logical step by launching what is likely the first bicycle school bus.
Built by Tolkamp Metaalspecials, and sold by the De Cafe Racer company, the bicycle school bus (BCO in Dutch) is powered entirely by children and the one adult driver (although there is an electric motor for tough hills). Its simple design has eight sets of pedals for the kids (ages 4 to 12), a driver seat for the adult, and three bench seats for freeloaders. The top speed is about 10 miles per hour, and features a sound system and canvas awning to ward off rainy days.
This pedal-powered school bus was made by De Cafe Racer and can be rented out for fun outings in the Netherlands (Click Image To Enlarge)
Co.Exist spoke with Thomas Tolkamp who built the BCO about its origins and how the idea is catching on around the world for the sets of 11 lucky kids who get to arrive in school pedaling their own school bus.
Co.Exist: What was the inspiration for the bus?
Tolkamp: I had already made other big bikes (like the Beerbikes) and a few years ago someone mailed me with the question if I could develop a bike especially for transporting kids. So for that other company (a child care) I made the first bicycle. Some other companies were also interested, so I began to produce more bicycles and have improved the bike.
How many of these have been sold? How many are in use?
We’ve sold around 25 bikes. They are still all in use, except for the very first one, which was a prototype.
Does it only come in yellow?
No, we’ve sold bicycles in green, blue, purple, grey, red, yellow, but all [standard] colors are available.
How much does it cost?
Around $15,000, so less than a taxi or normal bus.
Can the kids alone make it go?
It’s possible to ride the bike without the motor when most seats are in use, but it wouldn’t be safe to ride without an adult.
Do you have plans to export it?
We have already exported some bikes to Belgium and Germany, but not this kind of bike. We have gotten frequent requests for information about the bike from all around the world (North America, South America, Europe) but we’ve never sold a bike outside of Europe.
Do you think it will work well in other countries, or is it something special about the Dutch culture?
I don’t know really, but what I do know is that people from all around the world like the idea. We have gotten interest from the press all over the world and all people are positive.
I hope I can sell the bike in the near future to a foreign country and see how people at other countries react on the bike. I think it will work well in other countries, because as more and more people [are] becoming fat and "green living" becomes more important, ideas like this get more popular.
COMMENTARY: The Netherlands is the bicycle capital of the world, with 40% of all traffic movements by bicycle. They have created a bicycle friendly country that promotes a healthier, more active lifestyle for its residents.
In 2009, over 1.3 million bicycles were sold in the Netherlands according to preliminary figures. The Revenue is expected to be around 950 million euros, an increase of 4 percent from 2008. According to the RAI Association FietsVAK, the exhibition for the bicycle industry.
When people buy a bike, they’d rather buy a good bike”, said a spokesman for RAI. The average amount that was spent on a bicycle last year increased 3.5 percent to an average of 713 euros. In 2008 that figure was 683 euros.
The rise of the electric bike set last year continued. An increase of 30 percent is expected for 2009 with more than 150,000 e-bikes. The electric bike has a market share of 10 percent, with an average selling price of around 1900 good for 25% of the total bicycle sales.
The market share for e-bikes will increase further.
Dealers are still gaining ground as a sales channel for bicycles. Last year 85 percent of the bikes were bought in a real bicycle shop and the previous year it was still 82 percent.
Since 2009, the Dutch bike fleet grew to a total of 18 million bicycles, and probably more by now.
It's difficult to tell whether these pedal-powered school buses would be allowed on American streets because of a lack of bike lanes on many streets, city ordinances, speeders and most children commute to school using public transportation, school buses or their parents drive and pick them up from school. You would definitely need an adult to supervise the children.
These pedal-powered school buses really need older children. In the above picture, the bike bus is pedaled by kintergarderners. I think these kids are just too young to pedal a bike this big and bulk. I think you would need older children to pedal it.
The price of the BCO at $15,000 is a bit too pricey for most public schools to bear, then you have potential liability issues. For those two reasons, I have a feeling U.S. public and private schools would not buy them, so adoption will become an issue.
Courtesy of an article dated February 11, 2012 appearing in Fast Company Design and an article dated January 26, 2010 appearing in the Dutch Daily News
Fisker Automotive, developer of luxury electric cars, halted work at a former GM plant in Delaware and laid off 26 workers there because it ran out of government loan money.
Fisker had failed to meet production and sales milestones it had promised in the loan agreement with the Department of Energy, so loan cash was shut off last May. Fisker went on a cash diet, and solicited private investors, while it negotiated a new timetable with the DOE.
The cash shortage finally forced the layoff of 26 people at the Delaware factory, which was most of the crew working there to get the former GM plant back into service. Fisker also sped up the layoffs of 40 to 45 engineers at its Anaheim, Calif., headquarters.
Spokesman Roger Ormisher says those engineering jobs always were intended to vanish, once the company's $103,000 Karma sedan was well into production, but the shortage of DOE money accelerated those layoffs.
Click Images To Enlarge
Ormisher says Karma sales began late in November, and between 200 and 300 have been delivered in the U.S., out of an order backlog of roughly 2,000. Fisker has 45 dealers in the U.S. He says fisker also should have the OK to sell the Karma in Europe soon. It already has limited approval, and can sell a few vehicles there while awaiting the blanket approval.
Neither DOE nor Fisker would forecast how long it could take to agree on a new business plan with new milestones to resume the flow of DOE loan money.
The Delaware factory, bought from the bankruptcy assets of the old GM, is intended to manufacture three vehicles on what Fisker calls the Nina (pronounced nee-nah, not ni-nah) platform. The first, a compact sedan priced in the $50,000 range, is to go into production in 2013, though that might be delayed because of the halt. It is to be an extended-range electric.
If the batteries run low, an on-board gasoline engine would run a generator to keep juice flowing, somewhat like the Chevrolet Volt. Fisker emphasizes, though, that the gas engine never would drive the car directly. Volt's gas engine directly turn the wheels in certain, limited circumstances.
Financial Details:
DOE had agreed to loan Fisker $528 million. Fisker already has drawn $169 million to pay the California engineers and others involved in developing the Karma. It is built in Finland, which raised some eyebrows about U.S. taxpayers' money supporting, indirectly, an overseas manufacturing operation. Ormisher says more than 50% of Karma's parts are from the U.S. and it was designed and developed in California.
$359 million of the loan, is to purchase and refurbish the former GM factory in Delaware. Fisker has drawn only about $30 million of that before missing the DOE milestones and losing access to the federal loan money.
Official Statements From The DOE and Fisker:
DOE spokesman Damien LaVera:
"Our loan guarantees have strict conditions in place to protect taxpayers. The Department only allows the loan to be disbursed as the company meets certain milestones and demonstrates results. As has been widely reported, Fisker has experienced some delays in its sales and production schedule -- which is common for start-ups."
"As Fisker works through those issues and incorporates lessons learned from the production of the Karma, the Department is working with Fisker to review a revised business plan and determine the best path forward so the company can meet its benchmarks, produce cars and employ workers here in America."
Fisker Automotive:
"((The) strategy is to first and foremost establish strong Karma sales worldwide in 2012 and generate a strong business, and then to plan for the introduction of Nina at Delaware Assembly with the help of a loan from the DOE or other sources."
"With Karma we have made tremendous progress in a very short amount of time, developing and launching an all-new luxury plug-in hybrid Electric Vehicle with extended range (EVer) that is taking the auto industry in a new direction."
"With Project Nina, we have completed Phase One of the re-commissioning of a former General Motors plant in Wilmington, Delaware. We have temporarily delayed work at the plant based on ongoing discussions with the DOE regarding funding for the Project Nina program. As a result, we have laid-off 26 people."
"A flex model of expanding and contracting staffing for development of new cars is routine in the automotive industry. Project Nina is already well-advanced. Much of the engineering, design and development is near complete and we expect to ramp up operations again quickly."
"To date we have received $193 million of the $529 million DOE loan, mostly for the Karma program, and received our last reimbursement in May 2011. We are renegotiating some terms of the DOE agreement for the $336 million balance of the loan related to the Project Nina program."
"Fisker Automotive is in the middle of discussions with the DOE, however Fisker has been, and continues to pursue, alternative funding sources. We have successfully raised an additional $260 million of equity in late 2011, bringing the total amount of private equity financing to more than $850 million."
Fisker Automotive has raised $850 million in private financing from venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, New Enterprise Associates, A123 Systems Inc., Palo Alto Investors, Qatar Investment Authority and Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide, and several unnamed private individual investors.
The Irvine, Calif.-based company started a limited production of Karma in March. The company plans to produce 15,000 Karmas annually, but it’s not clear at what point it hopes to reach this level of production. The company increased the price of the car–each Karma will cost $95,900, a price that’s 19% higher than originally proposed–and delayed its release, after originally promising to start selling in mid-2009.
A123 Systems, which is supplying batteries to the Karma, projected revenue of $210 million to $225 million for 2011, of which about 47% will come from Fisker, according to analyst Dilip Warrier, at investment bank Stifel Nicolaus & Co. The production of Fisker cars is due to pick up soon.
It's unfortunate that Fisker has had to halt production at its new Delaware plant and layed off engineers at its Anaheim plant as well. Hopefully it will be able to produce the remainder of its 1700-1800 backlog of Karma orders to get back on track and be able to meet the DOE's production and sales milestones
The Department of Energy (DOE) is getting real tough with startups that received DOE conditional loans and is stopping progress payments if production and sales milestones are not being met. This all stems from the recent bankruptcy filing by Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer, that received $523 million in loans, and left the American taxpayers holding the bag, a real embarassment to DOE officials and the Obama administration.
Courtesy of an article dated February 7, 2012 appearing in USA Today
Palo Alto electric-car maker Tesla Motors (TSLA) slid 19 percent Friday after the company said both its chief engineer and director of chassis engineering for the Model S luxury car left the company just months before the rechargeable sedan goes on sale.
Click Image To Enlarge
Peter Rawlinson, Tesla's vice president and chief engineer, and Nick Sampson, who supervised vehicle and chassis engineering, departed this month, Ricardo Reyes, a company spokesman, said in an emailed statement Friday.
Reyes said.
"Having completed conceptual and design engineering work on Model S, Peter has decided to step away to tend to personal matters in the U.K."
Sampson had "fully transitioned" off the Model S at the time of his departure, Reyes said without elaborating.
Tesla, recipient of a $465 million U.S. loan to build its rechargeable models at the former NUMMI plant in Fremont, plans to begin producing and selling Model S cars by midyear. The company last month said initial versions, able to travel as far as 300 miles per charge, will sell for as much as $92,400 before a $7,500 tax credit.
Jim Hall, principal of 2953 Analytics, an automotive-consulting firm said.
"It may be for personal reasons, but it doesn't look good. And for Tesla, looks are very important at this point."
Tesla tumbled to $22.79 at the close in New York, the biggest slide since the shares began trading on June 29, 2010. The stock rebounded to $24.45 in after-hours trading.
Click Image To Enlarge
Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO and biggest shareholder, said in an emailed statement.
"The uncertainty around Model S is now much diminished, as anyone who has seen the beta vehicles and toured the factory will appreciate. There is no question in my mind that we will start delivering vehicles in July, if not sooner."
Jerome Guillen, formerly an engineer with Daimler, will assume Rawlinson's duties, and Tesla hired a former Volkswagen executive, Eric Bach, Musk said.
Musk said.
"Bach was head of small-vehicle programs at VW and has a lot of high-volume expertise, to help in the final stretch of bringing Model S into production. Eric reports to Jerome."
Rawlinson, a former chief engineer at U.K.-based sports-car maker Lotus and head of vehicle engineering at consulting firm Corus Automotive, joined Tesla in 2009.
Sampson, who joined Tesla in 2010, previously worked for Lotus and Jaguar.
Tesla investors included Daimler, Toyota and Panasonic.
COMMENTARY: In a blog article dated December 27, 2011, I reported on Tesla Motors prices for their new Model S sports sedan, so these two resignations are definitely quite surprising. I don't want to add to the mystery or speculate too much as to why two top executives working for Tesla Motors would leave almost at the same time for "personal reasons." When I hear "personal reasons," people are generally hiding something they don't want you to know. They were either fired or quit over some kind of disagreement. Perhaps they knew or discovered something that was so incredible that they chose to leave Tesla before the public finds out. It's hard to believe that they are leaving literally within a few months when the first Tesla Miodel S sports sedans are scheduled to roll off the assembly line. It's a shame that after all their work, they would not remain until after the Model S shipments begin. Whatever their "personal reasons" for leaving, Elon Musk should've taken measure to minimize the negative impact these key departures would have on Tesla Motor's stock. I'm sure the stockholders are not very happy about it, and there will be even more speculation on Monday morning.
Courtesy of an article dated January 13, 2012 appearing in MercuryNews.com
In a press release dated December 20, 2011, Tesla Motors announced the pricing and options for the Model S all-electric sports sedan. The Model S prices start at $49,900 and depending on the size of the rechargeable battery and numerous options, goes up from there.
Click Image To Enlarge
PRESS RELEASE
December 20, 2011
We’re 10 days away from 2012. Around the office, we’re calling it The Year of Model S.
In anticipation of what is sure to be the most exciting year in Tesla’s history, we’re pleased to announce final pricing and options for United States reservation holders. This pricing will be in effect for all current US reservation holders. Due to volatility in currency rates around the world, we are not able to announce pricing outside the United States at this time. We expect to announce pricing about six months prior to the start of deliveries in those areas.
There have been a lot of rumors about price increases lately. I'm happy to say that all Model S pricing remains unchanged, including the basic version with the 40 kWh battery at the price we announced in 2009 of $49,900 after federal tax credits. $49,900 includes our game changing 17" Touchscreen, 19" Wheels and a Universal Mobile Connector with three adapters that will allow you to charge at home and on the road. This is an incredible car at an incredible price.
We will also stick to other commitments we made earlier this year regarding delivery of an 85 kWh battery in mid-2012, a 60 kWh battery about three months later and the 40 kWh battery around the end of the year. We are very proud of our battery technology and will offer warranties up to 8 years with unlimited mileage. That's another industry first from Tesla.
The Tesla team has worked extremely hard over the past three years to create a car that will far exceed your expectations and set a new benchmark for innovation and excellence in the automotive world. With the Model S, our aim was to create the best car in the world, not simply the best electric car. We believe we have achieved this goal.
In support of that goal, we have developed options that allow you to create a car that is perfect for your needs. Perfect for the way you see your car. We start with an all glass panoramic roof beyond what what you've experienced in any other car that is as close as you can get to a year round convertible. Add foldaway rear facing third row seats and your Model S becomes the only car in the neighborhood that kids want to ride in. For the music lover, we have a stereo that will knock your socks off. And we have put together a Tech Package that will take the most innovative car ever produced to the next level.
Speaking of going to the next level, Model S Performance accelerates from 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds, faster than a Porsche 911 Carrera. It includes a Nappa Leather interior, exterior carbon fiber accents, Active Air Suspension and high performance tires and wheels. That's the way Tesla spells Performance. With an incredibly low center of gravity, Sport Tuned Traction Control and a high performance drive inverter, your favorite place to drive will be first in line at every red light. The Tesla Model S Performance Sedan will be available at start of production. Fasten your seat belt!
In order to make Pricing and Options as clear and easy to understand as possible, we arelaunching a new webpage today. We have included everything from Battery Specs to examples of the cool things you can do with Active Air Suspension. And don't forget to check out all the Charging Options at the bottom of the page. I'm not going to spill the beans too much in this post, but great things are about to happen when it comes to charging during cross country travel. More to come on that later...
In the meantime, thank you all for your continued support of Tesla. We appreciate everything you have done to help us get where we are today, and look forward to returning the favor by delivering the most exciting car you will ever own. Together let's bring a whole new meaning to the words Plug 'n Play!
Happy Holidays everyone. I can't wait for next year!
Click Images To Enlarge
COMMENTARY: At the end of June 30, 2011, Tesla Motors had received 5,300 deposits towards the Model S sedan, but far short from the 20,000 that Tesla Motors forecasts for 2012-2013.
In a blog post dated March 8, 2011, I profiled Tesla's Model S sedan, of which it has several versions: Basic Model S, and two others that get 230 miles and 160 miles, respectively, per charge. Consumers will pay for that extra battery capacity. Here were the prices back in June 2011.
Basic Model S - 160-mile range car selling for around $57,400 (as expected) before federal and state tax incentives.
Model S Long Range - 230-mile range car selling for around $10,000 more or $67,400 before federal and state tax incentives.
Model S Extra-Long Range - 300-mile range car selling for an extra $20,000 more of the basic Model S price or $77,400
According to a previous blog post about Pike Research. 33,000 and 45,000 EV's will be sold respectively in 2012 and 2013, the remainder are hybrids. Tesla expects to boost production of the Model S sedan to 20,000 units in 2013, which represents nearly half the total estimated by Pike for 2013. That's pretty bold, but at this juncture, these are raw estimates.
In a blog post dated January 2, 2011, I mentioned that Tesla Motors was on a very aggressive time schedule to start production of the Model S by mid-year 2012. It certain appears like Tesla Motors is dead set on meeting that schedule, and from the looks of things 5,300 pre-orders is quite an impressive number. If it can make good on its production time schedule, at $57,400 for the Basic Model S, that works out to $304 million in revenues or a gross profit of approsimately $76 million for 2012-2013. I am betting Tesla Motors will do 12,000 Model S, but that's just a guess on my part.
However, I don't dare underestimate Elon Musk, who is quite an impressive entrepreneur. He founded and runs both Tesla Motors and SpaceX. SpaceX is the first privately-owned spacecraft company startup, which is developing the Falcon 9 multi-stage rocket to replace NASA's Space Shuttle. SpaceX is already making money, I have a feeling it will go IPO sometime in 2012.
Courtesy of a press release dated December 20, 2011 by Tesla Motors
London rolled out a new look for its iconic double-decker bus late last week. The prototype, a fuel-efficient hybrid by the studio of Brit-boy wonder Thomas Heatherwick, is cleverly designed to speed up passenger boarding and represents the first time that the city has commissioned a new bus in more than 50 years.
Click Images To Enlarge
The big inspiration here was the '50s-era Routemaster, beloved for an exposed deck that let riders hop on and off quickly. The new bus reinstates that feature--which had been eliminated on all but a few routes in 2005--with a rear open platform. It additionally has three doors and two staircases to streamline the passenger-boarding process.
Click Image To Enlarge
Lookswise, the New Bus for London is as slick and as futuristic as any bus is going to be. It has a curved profile (Mayor Boris Johnsonlikens it to a “bowler hat,” among other embarrassingly stereotypical British things), lots of passenger windows, and an oddly asymmetrical front window. At first we mistook the latter for some sort of lame attempt at sexing up the bus with a racing stripe, but it turns out to serve a practical purpose: The angle gives drivers clear curbside views.
Click Images To Enlarge
The first fleet of buses is expected to arrive on the streets early next year. If successful, hundreds more will go into circulation in coming years. Checkout the following video of the new bus.
COMMENTARY: Now that's what I call a double dose of bus transportation pleasure. I love the cardinal red and blue color combination and those seats look very comfy as you ride the busy streets of London. I also appreciate that the new double-decker buss is a hybrid which results in lower carbon emissions. When I visit the UK, I definitely hope to ride one and report back what I think.
If you are planning a future trip to London, you will find the London bus transportation system one of the best and most extensive in the world. Bus fares are expensive compared to metropolitan bus lines in major cities of the U.S.
There are three methods of payment: Cash, Oyster Card (pay as you go) and Travel Cards. If you are a Londoner and commute regularly, the Oyster Card is very convenient, because you can add value to the card, and every time you use it, the fare is automatically deducted). You can find out more about routes, rates, live news and other information on the Transport for London website. Click the following Transport for London bus route map for all the bus routes in central Lond.
Click To View Interactive Bus Route Map
Courtesy of an article dated December 21, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design
Current batteries lack the oomph to power our freight-hauling needs. In the meantime, we have to squeeze every last drop of fuel we can out of them. These sexy new trucks should help.
The Nissan Leaf is great, but the sad reality is that we’re still many years away from electric vehicles replacing a significant percentage of our cars and trucks. Battery costs are high and ranges are comparatively short. Those problems are even more salient for semi-trailers, which need to carry heavy loads long distances. Our current batteries just aren’t going to cut it.
Click Images To Enlarge
But until they can, we can still make improvements to the semis we have. At this year’sTrailer 2011 exhibition (yes, it’s a trade expo for trailers), Mercedes-Benz is presenting a design study for a new aerodynamic trailer that reduces wind resistance by as much as 18% as compared to their existing Actros trailer.
The “Aero Trailer” sports a number of small design improvements that allow it to cut through the air more easily. The two most significant features are those side trim panels, which reduce resistance by 8%, and the tapered rear end, which contributes another 7% reduction.
The “Aero Trailer” is still just a design concept, but Mercedes says its features would result in a 5% fuel savings. That might not sound like a lot, but a truck that travels 93,000 miles in a year would save 528 gallons of diesel fuel and five tons of carbon dioxide.
Wind resistance improvements are not going to stave off climate change by themselves, but they’re certainly a step in the right direction, given that we’re stuck moving a certain amount of stuff with these trailers for the foreseeable future.
If you’re curious, by the way, electric (and hydrogen) freight trucks do exist. The Port of Los Angeles has been experimenting with them since 2008. They just can’t go very far.
COMMENTARY: That's one cool freight truck and trailer rig. I was texting a truck driving friend of mine, and he was saying it costs about $800 to $1000 to fill the gas tanks of his rig. Still, I think you need double-digit cost savings if you are going to attrack buyers. Save a truck driver 3,000 gallons of fuel, and I think you got them.
Courtesy of an article dated December 10, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design
Recent Comments